Department of Energy

Cameras mounted on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket show the fiery ride into space for NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover after taking off from Florida’s Space Coast.

Carrying a $2.7 billion NASA mission to Mars, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket took off July 30 from Cape Canaveral and fired into a summer sky powered by four powerful solid rocket boosters and a kerosene-burning main engine.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission resumed normal operations Friday after cold temperatures forced the spacecraft into space mode soon after a successful launch from Cape Canaveral.

Persevering through a global pandemic, a last-minute earthquake, and the trials of a rocket launch, NASA’s next Mars rover — named Perseverance — took off from Cape Canaveral Thursday on a nearly seven-month journey to the Red Planet with sophisticated science instruments, technology to collect samples for to Earth, and the first interplanetary helicopter that could produce a “Wright Brothers moment” on another world.